Blogs are a great way for most businesses to attract attention to their site and keep their SEO campaign on track. Just having a blog, however, isn’t enough. You need to know how to use it to interest your site users and market your business.
At the very least, your blog should enhance your relationship with your site’s users. Blogs are a great way to slip more information onto your site on a regular basis. If the content takes SEO into consideration, so much the better, and you can talk to us at SEO Consult about SEO content. With just a little more thought, though, your blog can actively further the aims of your business, leading to more conversions and ultimately more profit.
Blogging benefits revisited
The benefits of a blog have already been well discussed, but just in case you’ve missed those discussions here’s a review:
- Blogs are cheap. With the availability of free blogging software, blogs can cost nothing more than your time. If you want a quality blog and don’t have a writer on staff, the investment in constant fresh content is comparatively small compared to the cost of attracting as much traffic with advertising.
- Blogs build relationships. Blogs are great for attracting internet users back to your site, and help to establish a community around your site.
- Blogs help you compete. It seems like almost everyone is blogging these days. That’s mainly because almost everyone is. If your competitor has a great blog and you don’t you might find yourself out in the cold.
The basic requirement: quality content
Competition in the blogosphere is high. There is a social element to blogging that you can’t easily get away from, and if you want your blog to succeed you have to appeal to blogging society. This means that you can’t get away with low-quality content.
Quality content is the basic thing you need before your blog can achieve anything much for your business. If your content is only there for the sake of drawing search engine spiders, then search engine spiders are the only things that will read it. Get into the habit of posting genuinely interesting and valuable content.
The next step: include market information
The next level of blogging is using the content to market your products and services. It’s important to note that this does not mean you should turn your blog entries into advertisements. Taking your blog to the next level requires subtlety. Posting on subjects related to your products or services and casually mentioning them is enough. For example, if your site sells pet supplies, a blog post on the usefulness of a retractable leash with a mention that you sell them is a great idea. A blog post about how great your retractable leashes are is a bad idea.
Third step: link it up
Although you should avoid advertising in your blog posts, you can use them to direct users to pages that are a bit pushier. Back up your casual mentions of products and services with a handy link. This is also a great SEO move.
7 Tips For Attracting Comments
Comments sections can be a wonderful addition to the SEO of your site. Not only do they provide a supply of constant content to your pages, they build a sense of community and attract more readers. Opening up comments on your pages is a big decision, but the work doesn’t end there. You need to do something to get the comments going.
The opening of a comments section isn’t an easy decision. Comments require maintenance if you want to avoid spam. Internet users are notorious for leaving pest comments just to annoy site owners, and frequently you’ll have to remove outright malicious postings. However, if you find the right registration process or spam filter, the few hours a week you spend on moderating your comments section can bring great returns. Our consultants at SEO Consult can discuss this with you. Comments are great for search engine optimisation, and good for business too, as they let you know what your users are thinking.
Once you open up comments on one or more of your pages, it’s important to know how to encourage users to post. Here are some ideas:
1. Comment on other people’s sites. The internet is surprisingly reciprocal. You can attract attention by giving it to others.
2. Ask questions. This is a relatively simple trick, but it works. People like to be asked for their opinion, and are generally eager to give it even without asking. A simple question can be a great prompt. Even the basic ‘any thoughts?’ can work, as Twitter users have noted.
3. Ask for feedback off-site. If you’re participating in any communities around the net, take advantage of them by asking for input on your site. It can be a good idea to reference your content when you make comments and ask people what they think. This can net you some good inbound links, as well.
4. Fake it. It’s not the best way to get comments on your site, but sometimes a few fake comments can prompt others to comment. People are less likely to comment with an empty comments section. Just ensure that people can’t detect your fakery.
5. Create controversy. Many bloggers use a controversial post when they want to attract more comments. You can achieve the same effect by posting an article that challenges industry thinking. This is a path that has to be taken very gently so as not to permanently put users off.
6. Praise top commentators. Reward your top commentators by publicly praising them. The best way to do this is to post their names or a comment on your home page. There’s even a couple of plugins you can put on your page to automatically promote your most frequent commentators. Some of these offer rewards through providing a link to their websites.
7. Contests. Similarly, holding a contest for the best comment can be a great way to get a comment boost. The reward doesn’t have to be anything too impressive, and those who leave comments are likely to come back even when the contest is over.
Tags: Blog Comments, Blogging Tips, SEO Blogging
Posted in SEO Blogging on March 3rd, 2010 by Nick | No Comments »